Contents

Introduction

We present a new method and the associated workflow for estimating market shares of future products based exclusively on pre-introduction data, such as syndicated studies conducted prior to product launch. Our approach provides a highly practical, fast and economical alternative to conducting new primary research.

With Bayesian networks as the framework, and by employing the BayesiaLab and Bayesia Market Simulator software packages, this approach helps market researchers and product planners to reliably perform market share simulations on their desktop computers, which would have been entirely inconceivable in the past.

This innovative approach is explained step-by-step in a study about the introduction of the new Porsche Panamera in the U.S. market. The results confirm that market share simulation with Bayesian networks is feasible even in niche markets that provide relatively few observations.

We believe that making this method and the tools accessible to practitioners is an important contribution to real-world marketing. We are confident that for many companies this approach can yield a step-change in their forecasting ability.

Strategic Vision, Inc. has generously made their 2009 New Vehicle Experience Survey available as a data source for this case study.